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Category: Reacting

I read an email from Mike Dooley a few days ago. He said, “Instead of saying I am Happy or I am Sad or I am Hurt or I am Angry, pause and then say… “I choose to be Happy, Hurt, Sad, Angry, etc.” It woke me up to owning where I was going. Also, it showed me where I place blame. No blame is needed… I am acknowledging my choices. I was driving my car home after work this past week and I was tired after a full day of work and all that it entails. But I caught myself and said out loud “I choose to be tired.” Hmmm? What that gave me was the time to pause and think about if I am really tired or am I just saying this for another reason or out of habit? It also allowed me to ask this question: “do I really want to be tired?” So I said to myself out loud, “I choose to be happy. I have had a full day and I am hungry and will eat as soon as I get home.” Just adding “I choose” in front of whatever statement I was about to say evoked the question “do I really want that?” It shows me the power I have to choose. If you are like me, we grew up learning to blame and not taking responsibility for our feelings. We may have heard things like, “you make me so mad” or “see what you made me do” or “don’t make me think like that.” Wow! How we gave our power and happiness away to other people!

I think that when I say or think things unconsciously out of habit, they perpetuate feelings and outcomes for which I am just used to experiencing. It is like if we always say “Mondays Suck” then that brings with it the expectation and hence, the creation or experience of a sucky Monday. The power of our word and thought is huge and this exercise to say “I choose” in front of what we are feeling brings awareness and mindfulness.

This doesn’t mean that when I am truly hurt, angry or sad I blame myself for a less than a wonderful experience. No! But, if I am aware that I am ultimately in charge of my life and what I believe, then when I am irritated and hurt I can navigate through it better. What I choose to think and believe next will either take me through and out of the experience stronger or it will spin me downward to be consumed by it. Every thought is a choice and it is a practice to corral them to where I want them to take me; how I want to feel and be in the situation.

I believe that how I feel is directly related to what I am thinking and those things that I am telling myself. Yes, at the end of the day I need to have sufficient sleep and if I am feeling ill, I may need to make an appointment with a doctor. There are actions that I am to take to care for myself AND… those actions include becoming aware of what I am telling myself repeatedly or what am I saying about a situation that rises before me and how I react to it. Those spontaneous reactions are also very informative to my beliefs as they are not guarded and hidden but very much tell tale of what is in my heart and mind when something from left field enters my day or moment.

It takes consciousness to be happy. It is an inward thing. And it takes consciousness to be aware of the stories that you nor I want to play out in our lives anymore. Consciousness is cause and thus I am in training to bring about what I desire by exercising my power of choice.

Why did I flail and get all upset when he honked his horn at me on the corner? Traffic was still going by in both directions. We did not have the right of way. They did not have a stop sign and yet he honked! How rude!!! I flailed my arms up above the seats faster than my thoughts. I looked at him in the rear view mirror and then pointed in both directions of the cars coming into view as if he could see me. He did and he raised his hands with palms towards me in some apologetic jester. I was not softened by it. My heart and mind were reeling. “Duh!!! The person in front of you is stopped for a reason,” I thought out loud. When the traffic cleared I made my left turn. He did, too. I got a bit ahead as I didn’t want him near me.

Grief has an edge to it and accentuates my feelings; shortening my reaction times or rather, I forget to hit the pause button and breathe for 10 seconds before I react. And on that corner, at that stop sign yesterday, I didn’t remember this… I just flailed my arms and expressed indignant feelings for another mile as I drove toward the highway.

Flailing as I did, I learned less than an hour later, was about my need to know I was OK. That I had not done anything wrong and to be accused of such, by the honk of the horn, was to be questioned… was to tell me that I was not in the right place.

Thank goodness I was on my way to my practitioner session. At first I wasn’t going to share this little scene as there were other things I wanted to talk about. But over half way through our session, I shared about the encounter on the corner. She asked me about the flailing and what I thought it was about for me. I paused and said, “I’m not sure, but I knew traffic was coming and I couldn’t go… I wasn’t doing anything wrong.” Ah… the nugget of truth… I needed to know I was OK, that nothing was or is wrong in the bigger picture. The little girl inside me needed to feel safe and assured… not accused and pushed. It wasn’t about the blue truck behind me and his inappropriate honking as one would initially observe, it was about trying to do my best during this time of my life and feeling that I am OK in the midst of much change and shifting emotions. I needed to just hold my heart and say, “Your OK. Nothing is wrong, you haven’t done anything wrong.” His honking wasn’t about me, but my reactions to his honking were and in that I learned what was needed. I am OK right where I am and as I heard this, I teared up. Funny how we do that when the truth of our being is revealed.